Modern Vertebrate speaks!

Sunday, December 28, 2003

Call him crazy, but don't call him an unofficial candidate

ILSenate.com filed an extremely ugly report on Illinois senate candidate Andy Martin, questioning his psychiatric stability. While the report presented some pretty convincing heresay, they did attempt to present at least one fact. And of course, they got it wrong:
"Although we reported on October 14th, that Andy Martin was considering entering the Senate race in Illinois as of today his FEC filings still reflect that he is running for Senate in Florida."
ILSenate provides an accurate link to a filing with the Federal Election Commission in which Andy Martin declared his candidacy in Florida. The filing is dated Feb 6, 2003. ILSenate fails to point out that Martin publically dropped out of that race that fall and entered the Illinois senate race. On Nov. 21, 2003, Martin filed a brand new statement of candidacy for the Illinois senate race. Incidentally, you don't have to file a statement of candidacy with the FEC to be a senate candidate -- you only have to do that if you are raising money for your campaign. The true test of whether or not you are a candidate is if you've filed petitions with the Illinois Board of Elections, which Martin has done. So even if Martin hadn't updated his filing with the FEC, it's completely immaterial.
And that is something ILSenate.com was either too lazy to find out or was simply trying to hide from the public in order to serve its apparent goal: to prove that Andy Martin is a whack-job.
Nice try. Next time, try to make your case the old-fashioned way: with facts.